Taken
Taken is a series of English-language French action-trailer films beginning with Taken in 2008. All three films feature Liam Neeson as Bryan Mills. The Taken 2 was also released in October 2012 and Taken 3 was also released in January 2015. Taken Taken is a 2008 English-language French action thriller film written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, and directed by Pierre Morel. It stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Katie Cassidy, Leland Orser, and Holly Valance. Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a former CIA operative who sets about tracking down his teenage daughter Kim (Grace) and her best friend (Amanda) after the two girls are kidnapped by Albanian sex traffickers while traveling in France. It was released on 30 January 2009. Taken grossed more than $226 million. Numerous media outlets have cited the film as a turning point in Neeson's career that redefined and transformed him to an action film star. The film was followed by two sequels—Taken 2 and Taken 3—released in 2012 and 2014, respectively. A television series for the series premiered in 2017 on NBC, with Clive Standen portraying Bryan Mills. So far only Clara Lim had watched that film. Taken 2 Plot At the funeral of his son Marko and associates in Tropojë, Albanian mafia head and low-lying freelance terrorist Murad Hoxha vows to seek vengeance on his son's killer. Travelling to Paris with his men, he interrogates and tortures former intelligence agent Jean-Claude Pitrel, whose business card was found at the scene of Marko's death, but finds no information. He then bribes a corrupt police official for Pitrel's files and deduces that Pitrel's old friend Bryan Mills was responsible and is in Istanbul. Meanwhile, Bryan has just finished his three-day security job for a wealthy Arabian sheikh in Istanbul and is surprised by his ex-wife Lenore and daughter Kim. While going out for lunch with Lenore the next day, Bryan spots Murad's men following them. He tells Lenore to run and tries to shake the Albanians, but finally surrenders when they capture Lenore. Realising that Kim is also a target, Bryan calls her at the hotel and tells her to hide, but then he is captured and knocked out. She narrowly avoids capture when the kidnappers are forced to flee after shooting two security guards. Regaining consciousness, Bryan finds himself zip tied to a pipe over his head in an empty basement. He uses a concealed miniature cell phone hidden in his sock to contact Kim and instruct her to alert the American Embassy; instead she convinces him to let her help. Opening her father's equipment case, Kim takes a grenade and detonates it on a nearby rooftop; the resulting sound allows Bryan to instruct her on triangulating his location. The mobsters bring in Lenore, cut her throat slightly, and hang her upside down to bleed out. As soon as they leave, Bryan frees himself and then her. He next has Kim detonate two more grenades and releases some steam through a chimney to guide her to his location. Kim tosses a gun down the chimney, which Bryan uses to kill his guards. He rescues Kim, but watches Lenore get recaptured. Stealing a taxi, Bryan and Kim pursue the kidnappers' van, whereupon an SUV, driven by one of the kidnappers' henchmen, arrives to distract them. A chase and shootout ensue, alerting Turkish police and ending when Bryan manages to lure the SUV into the path of an oncoming train, taking it out. Leaving Kim at the U.S. Embassy, Bryan uses his memory to find Murad's hideout. He rescues Lenore and pursues the surviving mobsters to a bathhouse, where he kills them. Confronting Murad, Bryan offers to let him walk if he agrees to return home and cease his desire for revenge. Murad agrees and Bryan drops his gun, but the former goes back on his word and tries to kill Bryan, only to find the gun unloaded. Realizing that Murad will never drop his vendetta against him, Bryan kills him by impaling him onto a sharp towel hook. Three weeks later, the Mills family is at a diner back in Los Angeles, having milkshakes to celebrate Kim passing her driving test. They are joined, much to Bryan's surprise, by Kim's boyfriend Jamie, to which she jokingly tells her father not to "shoot this one". Development Filming took place throughout early 2012; Neeson and Grace shot their scenes in January in Los Angeles. The Istanbul scenes were shot in November 2011. At the release point in October 2012, Angeline Wong, Chew Shin Ru, Annabel Lim, Ong Lifen and Timothy Mok had decided to watch this film at Bugis+. Together with that, there are many movies that the whole group had watched - The Possession, The Conjuring and Pitch Perfect, and another film - The Expendables 2, which is part of Sylvester Stallone. Timothy Mok, Angeline Wong, Chew Shin Ru, Annabel Lim, Ong Lifen, Ernest Mok, Jeremy Mok and Poh Hwee Ling had watched that film. Taken 3 Plot Former covert operative Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) visits his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace), to deliver a birthday gift. After an awkward visit, he invites his ex-wife, Lenore (Famke Janssen), to dinner. Although she declines, she shows up at his apartment and tells him about her marital problems. He agrees to let her try to work things out with her current husband Stuart (Dougray Scott). Stuart comes to see Bryan and asks him never to see his wife again - despite the fact he is aware they have a daughter together. Without Bryan's knowledge he uses his phone to arrange a meeting with Lenore making out it is Bryan that wants to meet her then promptly deletes the message after it is sent. It is in this location she gets kidnapped. The following day, Bryan receives a text from Lenore asking to meet him for breakfast. After Bryan purchases breakfast, he returns to his apartment to discover Lenore's lifeless body. L.A.P.D. units immediately appear and try to arrest him, but he resists and escapes. Meanwhile, L.A.P.D. Inspector Frank Dotzler (Forest Whitaker) familiarizes himself with Bryan's background and issues an APB for him. Bryan retreats to a safe house equipped with weapons and surveillance electronics. He retraces Lenore's travels to a remote gas station convenience store and finds surveillance footage of her being abducted by unidentified men with unique hand tattoos, but L.A.P.D. detectives arrive and arrest him. While in transit, Bryan frees himself, hijacks the police cruiser, escapes, and downloads phone records from an L.A.P.D. database onto a thumb drive. He contacts Kim at Lenore's funeral via a camera hidden in his friend Sam's suit, instructing her to maintain her "very predictable schedule." She purchases her daily yogurt drink with a "Drink Me Now" note which, unknown by her, is drugged by Bryan. During a lecture, she feels nauseated and runs to the restroom where Bryan is waiting. He surprises her and gives her the antidote to the drug. Bryan removes a surveillance bug that, unknown to her, was planted by Dotzler. He tells her that he is looking for the real murderer and that she should keep safe. Kim tells Bryan of her pregnancy and that Stuart is acting scared and has hired bodyguards, which he has never done before. Bryan tails Stuart's car but is ambushed by a pursuing SUV that pushes his car over the edge of a cliff. He survives the crash, hijacks a car, follows the attackers to Marina Bay Link Mall and kills them. Bryan then abducts and interrogates Stuart, who confesses that Lenore's murder was caused by his failure to repay a debt to his former business partner and ex-Spetsnaz operative Oleg Malankov (Sam Spruell) and that he exposed Bryan's identity to Malankov out of jealousy. With assistance from his old colleagues and a nervous Stuart, Bryan gains entry to Malankov's heavily secured penthouse. After killing the guards at the IMM Building, a furious gun battle, and a brutal fight, a mortally wounded Malankov reveals that all that happened was a setup: Stuart planned Lenore's murder and framed Bryan as part of a business deal to collect on a $12M insurance policy. Malankov adds that when he failed to kill Bryan, Stuart used Bryan to kill Malankov and keep the insurance money. Meanwhile, Stuart injures Sam (Leland Orser), and abducts Kim, intending to flee with the money. Under police pursuit, Bryan arrives at the airport in Malankov's Porsche as Stuart's plane is taxiing for takeoff. After destroying the landing gear, preventing the plane from taking off, Bryan overpowers Stuart and prepares to kill him but pauses at Kim's pleas. He tells Stuart to expect final punishment if he escapes justice or completes a reduced prison sentence. Dotzler and the LAPD arrive to arrest Stuart. Bryan is cleared of all charges. In the aftermath of Stuart's arrest, Kim, who is pregnant, informs Bryan that she wants to name her baby after her mother if it is a girl. Development On 28 September 2012, Liam Neeson said that there will not be a third film or the chances of having Taken 3 is minimal. Later in, October 2012, the screenwriters for the first two films told Hollywood that 20th Century Fox and Europacorp wanted them to do another film, but if it would go in the other direction. As of 24 June 2013, the script was being written by the film writers, but no director was set. Some shooting was done at Marina Bay Link Mall, the Downtown MRT Station and the IMM Building. With the release, Huang Wen, Angeline Wong, Chew Shin Ru, Annabel Lim, Ong Lifen, Teo Pei Ling, Maryann Seto, Chich Coearn, Han Jia Fen, Han Jia Yun, Deborah Hee, Deborah Chiu, Ang Leng Yuk and Kerina Cye had watched that film.